Almost Sucks

Almost Sucks
by Mashiro

Naruto fandom, series, no spoilers
AU, BOYS LOVE: Naruto x Sasuke, Kakashi x Iruka, Lee x Gaara

first version: March 5th 2007, Monday
second version: November 25th 2008, Tuesday

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DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the rights to the Naruto series or characters and I make no money writing this. I’m just a fan. This is fan fiction.

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53: Random doors with no picture

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Naruto was running on the sidewalk, or maybe on the road, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. As long as the running took him closer to his goal, it didn’t matter. It also didn’t matter that his throat and his lungs felt like they were on fire and that his legs wanted to give up. Naruto kept running. He passed the red house of the Hag without even noticing.

The Hag and Naruto had had a war going on when Naruto was a kid. Naruto wasn’t sure how it had started, but he couldn’t remember a time when the Hag hadn’t called him a good-for-nothing urchin and he hadn’t thrown apples at her house. It had just been a war between the two of them though. The Hag had never gone and complained to Iruka about his misbehaved child and of course, Naruto had never complained either. When he grew older, Naruto had started to think that maybe the Hag didn’t hate him as much as she liked to pretend. Maybe she was just lonely and preferred the war to nothing at all. He had noticed she almost never had any visitors. Realizing that, Naruto hadn’t thrown quite as many apples and not quite as hard.

But this day Naruto didn’t notice the Hag’s house. He didn’t really notice the ready-to-give-up condition of his legs either, nor the hurt in his throat. It didn’t matter so he didn’t notice. Sasuke was on his mind. The lack of Sasuke was on his mind and the only thing that mattered.

Naruto didn’t waste time using the entrance to the playground; jumped instead over the low bushes at the corner. He landed on the sand near the swings, his knees almost failing to keep him up, and shouted Sasuke’s name. The kids playing on the slide looked up in surprise but they weren’t Sasuke so Naruto barely noticed. ‘Sasuke isn’t here’ was what he noticed, with only a quick glance at the area. For a split-second, the hope that Naruto still refused to let go of almost escaped him.

Then he remembered something and started running again, despite his legs, despite his lungs and despite the surprised children, across the playground. He called ‘Sasuke!’ again as he almost threw himself into the small house where Sasuke had smelled so good and made such enticing sounds; ages ago. So many hundreds of years ago.

The place was empty. Save for a broken red and sandy plastic bucket. Sasuke wasn’t there.

‘I’m not yours.’

Naruto wanted to cry, but instead he kicked the house with a snarl.

-

Why had Sasuke said that? Why had he been so insistent about saying that? That stupid, annoying ‘I’m not yours’ thing. Why? Naruto couldn’t for his life understand why.

Naruto hadn’t really meant it when he said that Sasuke was his. He hadn’t meant it like Sasuke was his possession or anything stupid like that. Of course Naruto hadn’t meant it like that! It was just something you said! People said it in songs and in movies and in comics when the story got cheesy. ‘I’m yours and you’re mine.’ It didn’t literally mean ‘I’m yours and you’re mine,’ it meant ‘I love you and I want to be with you forever.’

So why did Sasuke have to be an asshole and say that it wasn’t true? Twice even! Couldn’t he have just smiled or snorted or rolled his eyes or kissed Naruto or... or anything! Naruto would have been satisfied with anything! Anything that wasn’t what Sasuke had given him.

‘I’m not yours.’

‘I don’t want to be with you forever.’

Naruto had been thinking about those words ever since he woke up. No, even longer, ever since... Ever since they decided to do it; ever since the bus ride back from the mental hospital; ever since they were spoken. They had been haunting him. Not all the time consciously; he had been able to sort of concentrate during class and when he had been with Sasuke he hadn’t thought about it at all for long periods of time. It had been there though, subconsciously. Beneath the normal thoughts, the ‘what does she mean ‘we have already studied this before’? I haven’t studied this before! Stupid math...’ and ‘that spot under his jaw looks so tasty... how long has it been since I kissed it?’ Underneath.

Maybe Naruto just didn’t want to understand. Maybe his brain was just protecting his heart from misery. Maybe it was just as simple as: ‘I don’t want to be with you.’

If that was the truth, the real answer to his question of ‘why?’, then Naruto could understand why his brain would want to protect his heart. He didn’t want to imagine Sasuke not wanting to be with him.

-

Naruto left the playground with his fists clenched and his eyes fixed firmly on asphalt of the road far ahead of him.

Okay, so Sasuke wasn’t hiding in the playground. Big deal. There were other hiding places. Naruto hadn’t looked inside Sasuke’s house yet for example. Sure, the lights hadn’t been on and there had been no smashed windows on the first floor, but he could still be in there. There could be smashed windows on the second floor (if Sasuke was good at the ball games and running part of P.E., why not the gymnastics part?) and he could just keep the lights off to make it seem like he wasn’t there; Sasuke was a bastard, not stupid. He could be lying on his bed in his room at this very moment, while Naruto was out being angry and worried about him, listening to his stupid, noisy music. With headphones, so no one would hear. Naruto was going to kick his ass.

He tried to avoid the more logical parts of his brain. He didn’t very much like talk about the fact that it was much more likely that Sasuke would have taken his key if he had decided to hide out at his place, not climbed to the second floor and smashed a stupid window; and Sasuke didn’t have his key, Naruto did, in the pocket of his pants. Sasuke also probably would have taken his own clothes if he were to hide out at his place, and he hadn’t. Sasuke’s shirt was still on the floor where he had left it, next to the pants with underwear inside that Naruto had dropped. There were so many things that didn’t fit, the logical parts of his brain said; so many things that didn’t make sense. ‘Or maybe they do’, the whispering voice that was reason said. ‘Maybe they do make perfect sense but you just don’t want to see it.’

Naruto tried to ignore the logical parts of his brain because what they whispered about made so much more sense than what Naruto wanted to believe. He had found the laundry basket upside-down in the bathroom and the mess of clothes on the tiles. Naruto usually didn’t keep track of the laundry, but yesterday before school he had noticed a pair of his pants in the basket. One of the orange pairs; Naruto liked them. He had noticed those pants and he had thought ‘I want to wear those when we go to see Lee fight on Saturday.’ But those pants were missing now, and so were Sasuke’s shoes and his jacket.

The bathroom had been the first room Naruto had checked when he realized Sasuke was missing. He had gone as soon as enough time had passed that even if Sasuke had left Naruto’s room only a second before Naruto woke up it would be strange that he hadn’t come back yet. It only took so long to go to the bathroom and there was no shower running.

But Naruto had felt from the beginning that Sasuke wasn’t in the house. He had wanted to give hoping a chance, ‘Maybe he’s still around. If I just wait a little longer there will be sounds in the hallway and then the door will creak and he will be there. He will scowl and look cranky because it’s before ten on a Saturday and he’s awake.’ But one part of Naruto had known that Sasuke wouldn’t come.

He supposed it was the same parts of him struggling now. Hoping walked him down the street with his fists clenched, his eyes fixed on the asphalt of the road far ahead of him and his mind grumbling ‘there were still places left to look. That bastard of a boyfriend can’t hide forever.’ Knowing tried to tell him it was no use. Sasuke was gone.

-

Half-way through the lunch cup noodles (he had allowed himself lunch because he ran faster when he wasn’t hungry and because cup noodles only took minutes to eat so the time spent eating would be gained back quickly), knowing convinced hoping that Sasuke had left, and that Naruto wouldn’t find him running around in the neighborhood peeking into playground houses. He could feel it in his bones that Sasuke was gone.

For seconds Naruto didn’t know what to do with himself. The need to follow the bastard boyfriend crawled inside his skin like a million ants trying to get out. He had to follow! Where did he go!? Where had Sasuke gone!? For seconds it felt like Naruto couldn’t breathe.

Then something was turned off. Naruto sat still for a moment and stared at nothing at all. When he went back to eating to finish his noodles the pace was considerably slower. The cleaning up afterwards was equally sluggish. Going upstairs to his room, Naruto dropped down on his back on the floor among Sasuke’s clothes. Grabbed the shirt and pressed it to his nose. Inhaled and closed his eyes. For a moment it felt like Sasuke was still there.

What did he expect Naruto to do? Run after him? The bastard could be anywhere and the world was huge. What could Naruto do? Knock on random doors and ask if anyone had seen his boyfriend? Show a picture? He didn’t even have a picture.

‘I don’t want to be with you forever.’

Sasuke was... He had... No one had forced him to leave, had they? He had left all on his own. Stupid, bastard Sasuke. Naruto didn’t want to be a clingy boyfriend with no life that couldn’t stand being left alone for few hours or a day. He had seen enough shows on TV to know that that wasn’t healthy. Those boyfriends were the ones that ended up dumped and hated and miserable. You had to give the people you loved some space and time sometimes.

Two hours from now Lee’s contest would start and Naruto would go and cheer together with Gaara. He would have a great time and Sasuke would come home when he felt like coming home. Naruto trusted him and he was allowed to go places alone. Just because this time was a little... Just because last night had been... Stupid Sasuke. Naruto covered his eyes with the shirt and pretended yesterday had never happened.

-

Twenty minutes later Naruto found the note with the phone number on the bottom of a drawer in his desk. It was the last drawer he had checked, of course; the content of it and the other three drawers were strewn out across the floor. Stupid notes and stupid world. Naruto had meant to keep the note in a really good place so that he definitely wouldn’t lose it; so lost it was exactly what he had done.

It was the note Sasuke’s friend had given him that day when they met at the mental hospital. Shikamaru. It said so on the note. First there was a number, then it said: ‘Shikamaru (Sasuke’s friend)’. Shikamaru had said that Naruto should call him if Sasuke was being troublesome and Sasuke was definitely being troublesome now. Shikamaru would know where Sasuke was, right? Maybe he was even at Shikamaru’s place! That would make sense, since they were friends; and if Sasuke wasn’t there then Shikamaru could at least help Naruto figure out where he was and how to get there.

Naruto jumped across the mess on the floor, skilled after years of practice, and ran toward the phone in the kitchen.

Naruto had remembered that story Sasuke had told him before the stupid sex that went wrong; about how Sasuke had run away from home when he realized how much Kakashi meant to him and how Kakashi had found him freezing in a shelter for bikes. Kakashi couldn’t have known where Sasuke had gone either, but had it kept him from looking?

Naruto had remembered that he had said that if he ever lost Sasuke, he would get him back. He had told Sasuke that he would get him back. He couldn’t just say something like that and then not go through with it because it got a little difficult. That wasn’t his style. That wasn’t Uzumaki Naruto. What if Sasuke was...? Yes, it was silly, very silly and probably wrong, but what if Sasuke was waiting for him? What if he wanted to see if Naruto meant what he said, if Naruto could be trusted to keep his word? If Naruto could be trusted to...? Naruto couldn’t fail at that! He just couldn’t! Uzumaki Naruto meant what he said even if he had to go knocking on random doors without a picture and turn into a clingy boyfriend.

Naruto also knew that if it hadn’t been for his idea, if it hadn’t been for the sex that went wrong Sasuke would still be here. They would have woken up together and Naruto could have kissed him and Sasuke would have kissed back. Just waking up together would have meant the world to Naruto, so why did he have to come up with that idea?

‘Because I didn’t know it could go that wrong. Because I thought I was prepared. Because there was a burning urge inside me that just wouldn’t go away unless I did something with it.’

Iruka had said it was a bad idea, hadn’t he? And even if Iruka was overreacting a lot of the times, there were times when he was right! When Iruka had said that it was a bad idea to play soccer in the kitchen, it had been a bad idea; and when he had said that it was dangerous to climb that big and very inviting-looking tree at Sachiko-baachan’s, because it was too old and the branches were too weak, they had been too weak! Not at the bottom, but higher up. Iruka didn’t know he had been right about that tree. He didn’t know that Naruto had climbed it anyway with Ino, but he had been right. Ino had been skeptical for a second or two, probably because she thought Iruka’s reasoning made sense, but Naruto had yelled at her to stop being a girl and had started to climb without her. It was stupid. The branch had been strong enough to hold Naruto, who was heavier, so it should have been strong enough to hold Ino as well. Maybe she had put down her feet a bit further out on the branch, where it was thinner, or maybe Naruto had weakened it for when she got there. Either way, climbing that tree had been a bad idea. Ino had fallen. Naruto had been so scared.

Wasn’t that time sort of like this time though? Not that Naruto had called Sasuke a girl for hesitating, but he had noticed that he was hesitating, hadn’t he? Sasuke might have said that he was okay with it and that he wanted to, but he had been hesitating and Naruto had known. He had fallen asleep before they had even gotten undressed! If that wasn’t a sign then nothing was.

But Naruto had ignored Sasuke’s hesitation (fear? Worry?) and kept going. He had thought it was a good thing and Sasuke hesitating was just Sasuke being afraid of things that were good. Maybe Sasuke had been proud and stubborn and hadn’t wanted to seem scared. Naruto wouldn’t have called him a girl if he had said he didn’t want to, but... Maybe Naruto had seemed to know what he was doing. He had come up with the idea; he had read the book and had gotten the stuff they needed. Maybe Sasuke had wanted to, even though he was scared; maybe he had wanted Naruto to prove that he was wrong to fear good things.

There was nothing to be afraid of. No weak branches, no high places to fall down from, no almost hitting your head on a shard-shaped rock sticking out of the ground and no momentarily losing your ability to breathe. Or so Naruto had thought. Maybe there had been; not actual, physical shard-shaped rocks, but emotional ones. Maybe Sasuke had fallen from a high place and that was why he left.

‘You made me climb that dangerous tree and I fell down!’

Ino hadn’t said that. Ino hadn’t even cried; but she had wanted to. Her eyes had gotten wet and her lips had trembled as she bit them and she had swallowed a lot. ‘I’m okay,’ she had managed to say once she could breathe again, but she hadn’t been. Naruto had seen the way she walked slowly when they went home and the bruise on her back later. She had lied to Sachiko-baachan and said she had fallen off a horse.

-

Why don’t I notice?

It feels so good that it hurts. Almost hurts. Hurts. I can’t decide. I want to cry because it’s so big. So overwhelming. So everything. This moment consumes me completely.

Where is Sasuke?

This moment consumes me completely.

At first it seems fine. He is smiling and I am too. I am happy. Relieved and so happy. It feels like I’ve won something. Something bigger than any contest ever held. Like I’ve accomplished something unaccomplishable, something no one has accomplished before. It’s perfect. I can die and be happy. I can die now and be at peace.

‘You’re all sweaty,’ I say.

Then I notice he’s still hard. He tries to pretend it’s nothing, but it isn’t. It’s everything all of a sudden. It ruins the perfection. The accomplishment. For a moment I’m angry at him for ruining the moment. Then I’m angry at myself. I go from being better than anyone to being the lowest being. From being in the dream to waking up.

I suppose I already know that I have failed. I know that something is wrong. I notice, but... but I don’t. No, I notice, but I don’t notice the depth of it. I don’t see how deep it goes. ‘Maybe it can still be fixed,’ I think as I talk to him. I can bring back the dream maybe, if I just go back to sleep and try really hard. The moment will change back and he will...

He will be pleased with me. He will love me. He will stay with me. He will be mine. He will stay forever. I’m such an idiot.

I touch him. His muscles tense and he makes sounds. And I can hear the wrongness in those sounds. I fail. I make things worse.

I watch his eyelids hide his eyes and the tears that make their way down from the corners of them. He’s trembling; struggling with someone on the inside but it’s not me. I’ve never seen him look so... raw before. It’s like he’s lost his... skin. So many of the things that he has always been are gone. His pride. His cool. His...

He is so naked. I wonder if this is the real Sasuke. This crying, naked, prideless thing. I wonder if he would ever have shown this part of himself to me unless... If he had been given a choice.

Where did it go wrong?

I am cold inside and for a moment I wonder if it will kill me. It’s the most horrible, horrible feeling.

What did I do wrong?

I kiss him and tell him that he’s beautiful. I regret the words as soon as they have been spoken but Sasuke doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t seem to notice anything.

The practical things happen automatically, or so it seems; like this is not the first time, like I’ve had practice and am skilled. I throw away the condom and I clean us up. The blue tube is hidden away.

I bury my face in his skin and hide. I put an arm around him and cover us both with the comforter. I wonder why I don’t cry. After many heartbeats in silence I tell him that I’m sorry. I’ll try harder next time. I tell him that I love him.

He doesn’t say a word.

-

“Naruto?” the voice on the other end of the phone said.

“Err... Um, yeah,” Naruto frowned. He hadn’t expected to hear his name and for a moment it dragged the focus away from the reason he had called in the first place. Was Shikamaru a psychic? “How... err, did you know?”

Shikamaru sighed.

“Sasuke called me from your house once,” he said, sounding bored. “I saved the number.”

“Oh,” Naruto was still frowning; thought for a moment. Then he remembered. “Oh! It was you that time?”

“It was me.”

“Okay...” Naruto mumbled as he remembered that day and Sasuke in his arms. Then he laughed softly, but not because it was funny.

“So what’s up?” Shikamaru asked and shifted the phone against his ear, or so it sounded like.

A snake of nervousness ran through Naruto’s body and he found himself hesitating; gnawed at his lower lip for a moment. He had been so eager to get to the phone, to talk to Shikamaru and find out where Sasuke had gone but now it was... now...

“Sasuke is...” he started and closed his eyes for a moment before continuing. “He’s missing. Or, I just... don’t know where he is. He didn’t leave a note or say anything, so... I don’t know. I’ve looked around here but I couldn’t find him. Maybe he’s just out... out somewhere or something, but... I just...”

It felt like a confession of a sort. Like telling Iruka that something had been broken in the kitchen.

‘You know those plates you always told me to be careful with because they were once your grandmother’s? One of them is... is broken now.’

“Do... Do you know where he might have gone?” Naruto continued. “Is he at your place? I thought he might... Since you’re friends and you... He took my clothes. He had his own in... in my room, but he took mine from the laundry. I haven’t... seen him since last night.”

‘Naruto, I told you to be careful with those plates! Will you ever listen to what I’m telling you!?’

Naruto wondered how the hell he could have waited so long. Sasuke had been missing since last night! He should have known something was wrong. He had known, hadn’t he? He had just chosen to... He had known what had happened and he had known that things had gone wrong. Things weren’t right!

“Tell me what happened,” Shikamaru said and the tone of his voice reminded Naruto that this was Sasuke’s friend, not his.

“I don’t know!” Naruto wanted to cry; he felt the tears burning behind his eyes but this was not the time for that. This was not the time. “I didn’t hurt him. At least I... didn’t mean to hurt him. I just... I don’t know what happened.”

There was a moment of silence and then came a sigh. A soft sigh; almost not there at all.

“I know,” Shikamaru said and his voice had changed. The threat was gone. He sounded tired again, tired and worried and sad. “I know. It’s not you.”

“But I...!”

“Look, he’s scared, alright? He’s scared. I don’t know what happened but I know him. He does shit like this when he’s scared. You just loved him, right?”

Naruto swallowed. He didn’t want to speak because he didn’t think he could do it without the tears finally escaping from his eyes. But he nodded. Somehow Shikamaru knew.

“It’s not your fault.”

At that Naruto sniffled.

“I just...”

“It happens, when you’re with him. He’s...” Shikamaru sighed softly again. “It’s not your fault.”

Naruto sniffled again and one of the tears fell. Maybe it was time for that.

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